New Jersey Gays Want Marriage
Hundreds turn out for Maplewood town meeting
marking anniversary of domestic partnership law
Volume 75, Number 8
| June 13- 20, 2005
New Jersey Gays Want
MarriageHundreds turn
out for Maplewood town meeting marking anniversary of domestic partnership
lawPhoto:
Seth J. Bookey/Gay City
NewsMaplewood domestic
partners Stacy Brodsky (l) and Felice Londa were among those who turned out
Saturday to demand marriage
rights in New Jersey. (GAY CITY
NEWS)By SETH J.
BOOKEY“Domestic partnership is
nice, but we really want to get married,” was the general message coming
out of a town meeting in Maplewood, New Jersey, on July 10, organized by Garden
State Equality.The event marked the
first anniversary of the state’s implementation of a domestic partnership
registry that grants gay and lesbian couples limited, but important
rights.The town meeting, which packed
more than 470 attendees into St. George’s Episcopal Church, also gave
Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
political organization, a chance to spotlight its most significant
goals—legalizing same-sex marriage in the state, demonstrating the
shortcomings of the existing domestic partnership law and adding
anti-discrimination protections for the transgender community.
Garden State Equality also debuted a
film, “New Jersey: A State that Doesn’t Hate,” that, despite
its title, presented case studies illustrating persistent discrimination
problems—including a lesbian politician slandered by an anonymous letter
falsely accusing her of being a pedophile, a gay teacher in Lower Township in a
committed relationship denied partner benefits because the state law only
mandates benefits for state-level public employees and a transgendered woman who
has suffered hundreds of humiliations during a fruitless job search.
One highlight of the gathering was the
keynote address delivered by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a gay Massachusetts
Democrat. Frank discussed the current
state of gay marriage in Massachusetts, and right-wing efforts to undo it,
emphasizing that making an effective case for same-sex marriage is often a
matter of refuting “the preposterous case against it.” He also
discussed the ways in which other civil rights advances were resisted based on
predictions of “social instability” later consistently proven to be
unfounded. Frank told the audience that the problem is not the
bigots—“these are people who don’t even want us touching each
other”—but those who are opposed to same-sex marriage because they
have “heard” it would be socially chaotic. He said that if the
public is able to hear real stories in town meetings and other comfortable
settings and learn that any advance for gay or lesbians has no impact on their
own marriages and families, there is an opportunity for the gay community to
change minds.Frank—described
himself as a believer in “incrementalism—get what you can and move
forward”—said that same-sex marriage will be most readily acceptable
where when domestic partnerships or civil unions are already in place, just as
winning transgender protections is made easier by first have gay rights laws on
the books.New Jersey passed an
anti-discrimination bill protecting gays and lesbians in
1990.Frank exhorted the crowd to vote in
every primary, noting that “in my business, the only number we really care
about is how many people come to the voting
booth.”The town meeting opened
with a procession of couples who are registered as domestic partners and are now
seeking marriage. As Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality’s executive
director, noted, domestic partnership covers less than a dozen of the 1,049
rights and responsibilities that the federal Government Accounting Office has
found are guaranteed by marriage. Goldstein told the crowd that a state marriage
case that lost in two lower courts is now poised to be heard by the highest
court in New Jersey, which is “where we want to
be.”One of the couples who
participated was Ulysses Dietz, a curator for a museum in Newark and a deacon at
St. George, and his partner Gary Berger, who were accompanied by their children
Alex and Grace.“It’s about
time we got married,” Dietz told the
crowd.“Emotionally, it’s
meant something,” Dietz later Gay City News about the couple’s
registration as partners with the state. “It’s the only publicly
legal document that says we’re a
couple.”Otherwise, domestic
partnership has not brought many changes for the couple, who Deitz said want
“all the legal ramifications of marriage” for themselves and their
children.“All of our kids’
friends have parents who are married—or at least were married,” he
explained.Dietz specifically pointed out
that while the New Jersey legislation protects a surviving partner from state
inheritance taxes, there is no protection from federal taxes on that
income.Felice Londa and Stacey Brodsky,
who have been together six and a half years and became domestic partners as soon
as it was possible to do so, were also on hand to voice their demand for
marriage. Londa, who was involved in last year’s festival marking the
first day of domestic partnership registration, noted that Maplewood was the
first municipality to open up its domestic partnership registry last
year—on July 10, a Saturday, when City Hall would normally be closed. More
than 700 couples registered across New Jersey in the first days of eligibility
last year, 200 of them in Maplewood
alone.According to the Newark
Star-Ledger, more than 3,200 gay and lesbian couples are now registered across
the state.Saturday’s gathering was
also an opportunity to honor legislative allies from Trenton with induction into
the Equality Hall of Fame. Among the honorees were New Jersey Acting Gov.
Richard Codey, Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), who authored the
domestic partnership legislation, Assemblyman Joe Roberts (D-Camden), the
majority leader, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), author of the bill
pending in the Legislature to add protections based on gender identity and
expression to the state’s anti-discrimination bill, and Sen. John H. Adler
(D-Camden), who heads the state Senate judiciary committee. Also honored were
Sen. William L. Gormley (R-Atlantic), Assemblymen Robert J. Martin (R-Morris
Plains) Jerry Green (D-Union) and John F. McKeon (D-Essex), and Assemblywoman
Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer).The
July 10 town meeting is the latest in a series of meetings organized by Garden
State Equality since 2003 aimed at educating the public about gay marriage. More
than 6,700 people have turned out for these meetings, the next of which will be
held September 15 at 7 p.m. at Montclair State University. For more information,
visit
gardenstateequality.org.
Posted: Thu - July 14, 2005 at 10:18 PM
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Published On: Jun 20, 2009 07:03 PM
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